In the second of our two-part series with Dr. Sally Palaian, we take a closer look at couples and money. As with all things in marriage, communication is key. Everyone has their own story, behaviors, dreams, aspirations, disappointments, hopes, and ideas about what money is and what money's not. As we referenced in our previous episode, it is often formed by your upbringing.
If you are entering a partnership with someone, it is essential to talk about money, how the finances will be set up and how they will be discussed. Sometimes there is some level of interdependency. Opposites attract, as we know. And often, a spender and a saver may pair up.
Dr. Sally goes through some possible solutions to money disagreements today. If internal communication in the relationship isn't enough, you can seek help. And you don't have to start with a mental health professional - you can begin with a CPA or financial advisor.
Often, the money relationship in a couple can be tied to power. That's why it's so important to educate yourself about money, and all money matters.
More on Dr. Sally Palaian: https://www.positiveselfcenter.com/
Sally's book, Spent: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592856993
Paula's Website: https://paulachristine.com/
Paula's Email: Paula@PaulaChristine.com
Paula: Welcome to Beyond the Paycheck. I'm Paula Christine. Stop living paycheck to paycheck and start living the life you dream about by taking control of your money. I can provide you with the knowledge and the tools if you make the commitment to put them into practice. So last week we talked to Dr. Sally Palaian about money mindset, or just even how scarcity can lead you to not being successful in life.
And she gave us some tools on how we could change that. So I asked her back today to talk couples, and how couples can handle money and how to talk about money. So welcome back Sally.
Sally: Thank you.
Paula: Glad to have you back. I just loved our episode last week. I just helped me so much. So let's talk about couples and money and being in the financial services industry.
I have sat across people who fight like crazy when it comes to money, and I don't sure if there's a right or a wrong way. Like I worked with a couple the other day and there were like second marriage, children. They're like, do we split our accounts, like everybody contributes the same amount? But he makes more than I do.
Should he contribute more or should we just put it in a whole big pool, blah, blah, blah. You probably hear that scenario a lot. So how do you handle it? How do you talk about it?
Sally: Just beginning the dialogue is the first step, making these little logistical decisions about how to handle the division of who's paying for what or how that's going to be towards bank accounts and all that you're talking about?
Paula: Yeah. Just in general. It's hard.
Sally: It's really hard to have these discussions. Okay, so let's go back to everyone comes from their own unique blueprint about money. Everyone has their own story as they came into the marriage or into their adulthood with their own behaviors that they come to their own dreams, aspirations, disappointments, hopes, ideas about what money is, what money's not, hopes and temperaments.
Materialism. Some people are into more stuff than other people. Everyone has a unique temperament about that. Everyone has different earning powers, different financial obligations in terms of family. Perhaps they may have come in with kids or elder parents or inheritances they were gonna get. Everyone has their own blueprint, right?
So we have our own within us, our own intrapsychic stuff that goes on with our relationship with money. And then now we have another player that we have to deal with and they've got their own story, a whole package over there. And we've got money between us. I'll say money between us because we are financially interdependent with each other in a marriage, right?
Whether or not one person supports the other, whatever, however that goes, we're still financially interdependent. The decisions of one person impacts the decisions of the other person, right? If somebody's using all the money and the other one can't do stuff, cuz the other one's the over spender type, it's a very complex conversation to have.
First up, always for me, always is awareness for people to start to become aware of where their patterns are coming from as individuals. These are individual stuff, right? And why things mean so much to them. Like for someone going on a vacation might mean a real lot to them because they didn't ever go on vacations when they were a kid.
Or for someone, having nice clothes might mean a lot to them because they are a little more oriented around appearances than the other one. Everyone's a little different, right? So then having these discussions about what these things mean and why, sometimes can shift if one party doesn't have problematic behaviors, cuz it can be that one person really is a financial addict type person.
Paula: What do you mean by financial addict?
Sally: Like a compulsive spender that can't stop spending, a compulsive debtor that is constantly in debt or someone that constantly underachieves financially and doesn't contribute, equally, or is up to their potential to the partnership. For someone who has these kinds of serious behaviors that they can't change or aren't willing to change.
I sometimes put them into an addiction category. I write a little bit about that in my book, about finances can be an actual addiction that people truly are powerless over and really need outside intervention in order to make changes.
Paula: Let's say that I had a spouse that was an over spender, and I would talk to them about it and how it made me feel because maybe I'm a saver and it just was against everything that I believed. Do you suggest if they can't see themselves for who they are, do you suggest therapy or?
Sally: Absolutely. If one person is an overs spender and it's problematic in the relationship, that example that you just gave is a perfect example because a lot of times the spender will get with a saver. We are always attracted to opposites and do get different dynamics that go on, and generally one's more conscientious about money and the other one's more avoidant or doesn't really care about finances, so yeah, I recommend therapy for sure. In couples dialogue, tarting to do some dialoguing about this, at least having some trained conversations, maybe that would be with a financial planner or an accountant. It doesn't necessarily have to be with a therapist. The accountant and the financial planner could help them see the numbers and if the person still can't see it after they see the numbers and the way the numbers don't work, then we need to look at therapy or interventions for someone that might have more serious financial dysfunction.
Paula: So how often do you suggest that a married couple or partners talk about money?
Sally: It depends on how big of an issue it is. I had one couple that I worked with for years that they had a conversation every day about what they spent that day.
They were both a little impulsive and they got a whiteboard actually, and they broke down on the whiteboard every day with they had spent. So they could see what the other one had done and what they had done. They were trying to be accountable to themselves and to the partnership. So could be daily or it could be weekly.
Let's go over our bills this week. What big things do we have coming up? What do you expect you're gonna be spending on what little bonus or something that's gonna come in this week? How are we gonna manage this? Could be weekly or could be monthly. Just when you pay the bills. Once a month, depending on if you don't have that big of issues.
But I think there's two different conversations to be had. One is a conversation about what the money means to the person and what the behaviors mean to the person. And the other conversation is the actual number crunching.
Paula: I think the number crunching is actually probably the easier part than what money means to someone and why we do what we do.
Sally: The other piece that goes on here, when I talked about the financial interdependency that we have this relationship with each other and money's involved here. Like with a boss, an employee. It's like a hierarchical money relationship or a parent to a child.
One person provides the money, the other one receives it. In a marriage, it's positively an egalitarian exchange, even if they don't both contribute the same amount of money. But it's supposed to be. In a marriage, you're partners, right? So it's supposed to be more egalitarian where the money is between you not going from top to bottom.
So with this discussion, what needs to happen is each couple needs to look at the power dynamics that go on. Cuz money is used as power in relationships a lot.
Paula: Yeah, I would agree with that.
Sally: And it gets problematic and trickier, A little stickier. If one person really wants the other person to be the provider, they don't wanna be involved and the other one needs to control through the mind because they are earning. So the conversations then get a little stickier and they may need therapeutic help to get through those more stickier conversations.
Paula: Yeah, I know that, I see that a lot, especially with the older generation where a lot of women stayed home and didn't work and the man brought home all the money and they were given a stipend, and it was all about power and control and I don't think that they realized that's what was happening, but it's also taught a whole generation of women. They don't know much about money.
Sally: Exactly. Yeah. The gender piece and they don't wanna be involved. I've had so many women that have just avoided the whole topic.
Paula: And what are we, I think we're 51% of the population and I think we control most of the money in the world.
Sally: That makes sense. Cuz they do most of the shopping.
Paula: We should know, but we don't know about money. I met a woman the other day. She was, it was probably about a year ago, and I hate to use this term, but she knew that she was married to a very wealthy man. She didn't work. She had three children and she's I don't know anything about money.
And I'm like, oh, we've gotta teach you, you need to understand about expenses and assets and how all of that works. I just think there's a lot of women out there that just don't know.
Sally: So was she open to learning?
Paula: Yeah, she was very open to learning. And actually sat with her and a couple of her girlfriends and taught them too.
I think everybody needs to learn, man or women. You just need to learn how money works, how to budget, how to track, how to invest, how to have insurances, and all the things that you need to make you financially. If you can understand it and work through all the steps that need to take place.
Jon: I go back to a point that Sally made earlier, which is knowledge is power. And sometimes it does play into that power dynamic of a relationship where you have one person, the husband or the wife that is in control of the money, and if the spouse or partner is kept in the dark, that creates a real power dynamic between the two.
Sally: Absolutely. Not only do they have the money, but they're also have the awareness of what's going on with the money. And you disempower yourself when you don't put yourself in the ring, at least learn about it.
Paula: But I think a lot of people, men or women, doesn't really matter. We have no education about money.
I know they're recently starting that to start teaching kids in high school about money, but most of us parents never talked about it. And you went off to school or you got your first job or whatever and you didn't know. You learned by trial and error.
Sally: Exactly. Yes, we definitely lack the financial literacy in this culture, and it's unfortunate because we have such a materialistic culture that they wanna teach us how to buy and shop, but they don't wanna teach us how to balance it all and figure out what are our most important priorities and how to balance paying the bills, the necessities versus the little fun, indulgent things.
Yeah, we have a long way to go in educating younger generations.
Paula: A long way to go. That's why I started Paula Christine, and Beyond the Paycheck. So we can teach that generation about money and how it works and just tiny changes in what you're doing today can have a huge impact on your life forever.
Let's go back to the couples things. So you have the conversations, daily, weekly, monthly, whatever works for. If you can't agree about certain things, then you might need to get a help from, yeah, I agree. A financial planner or CPA or a therapist to help you work through things. And sometimes it takes that outside help to say, hey, this needs to be changed and how are you gonna go about doing that?
But how does somebody really. I know we all have the best intentions of changing, but how do you really change those behaviors? And I you're gonna say some of it is accountability, but what else do we need to look at?
Sally: In terms of how some would change their own financial behavior, you mean? Or just in general?
Usually we need to have pain or consequences to change.
Paula: Oh. That doesn't sound good.
Sally: I know. I'm sorry to say. Not everyone, like a lot of times we change that out of our own initiative, but consequences and pain are huge motivators for most people, unfortunately. Because change is hard, right? Change is not easy.
It's hard enough when we want it that we can't always change the ways we wanna change. So consequences and other people outside of us giving us feedback about that, like in a couple ship, can be the motivator for change. How do we change? We change by lightening up inside. I'm big on the self-compassion, giving a lot of awareness and being compassionate with ourselves for where we.
While we simultaneously envision where we wanna be and slowly move towards that, taking action steps that move us in those directions that we wanna be in, starting to make the calls or networking we need to do, if we need to earn more, for instance. Or slowly starting to stick within your budget or doing it, slowly, gently, and starting to make a spending plan for yourself.
Spending plan for the coupleship. And in conversation about what are the needs of this coupleship? What are we doing in our future planning for that stuff?
Paula: So most of it is about setting goals, changing behaviors, and communicating.
Sally: Absolutely. Yes.
Paula: Sounds like the perfect world.
Sally: It's sticking within our spending plan. When I'm make spending plans for people.
For a coupleship, sometimes one person in a coupleship, needs to have a "no questions asked" category. Where if they wanna buy cigarettes or if they wanna do this or that, they can do whatever they want. Someone wants to buy an expensive purse, you're gonna save up for that a few months in a row with their "no questions asked" category.
Paula: I like that category because I think you need to have that where you just want to buy that chocolate bar, whatever it is that you need. Without having to justify why you bought it.
Sally: Absolutely. Yes. After years of working with money, our money blueprint is as unique as our fingerprint. Some people will spend money on something that someone else wouldn't spend money on. Everyone's got their own little weird things that they're cheap about, they're extravagant about. That mix is very inconsistent within the same person.
Paula: And then try to mix that with another person.
Sally: Absolutely, yes. Who might not be able to understand why that person wants that designer outfit or these golf lessons or whatever.
Paula: Yeah, I had a lot of those conversations and when I was married too. When you talk about what do you really want that for? I would never buy that. That's a waste of money. And now that I think about it, I think it probably not, wasn't the right way to handle it. But it happens.
Sally: Right. We live in an abundant culture here. We've all had impulsive purchases that we later thought were crazy. We're all doing it.
Paula: We are. So tell me a little bit about your book.
Sally: In my book, I outline different types of money styles. I have what I call a money matrix. So the XY axis. On one axis, we have indulgers and deprivers. So we all have a tendency of around money where we're either indulge or we deprive ourselves with money and just even having. And then the other axis is actually is about money management. So some people are obsessive and they like to do Quicken and count their numbers and have their receipts. And other people are more avoidant about money. And within each quadrant we have different personality styles of how people handle money. They have a whole breakdown about that in terms of the different types of dysfunctional financial behavior. I have a whole section around spending plans, going to start tracking your money and being aware and starting to record your finances. I have a section around how to determine if it's problematic financial behavior, or if it's addictive behavior.
What's normal, what's problematic and what's addictive. Break down that pattern. Here you have visioning section. What's possible for us. A section handling impulsivity.
Paula: Yeah, it sounds like it's pretty comprehensive.
Sally: Yes. Lots of different stuff in there.
Paula: So I guess we should say the title of the book, which is Spent: Breaking The Buying Obsession and Discover Your True Worth.
We'll have that in the show notes too. Anything else that you would like to share with us about money, couples?
Sally: This last thing I wanna say is just stay in dialogue. And stay in communication because I've seen so many people that they thought they couldn't ever make this work, cuz they were so different about finances or any other issue. But particularly we're talking about money here and if you say in dialogue, get the appropriate help, it is possible to work together. I'm a very, I am a tandem bicyclist and I know when we're climbing hills on a tandem, it's hard to climb together. And when we're sailing, it's really easy to go downhill together when we're doing some good stuff, but when you work together, you have a lot more momentum that you can generate with two people working together towards financial goals.
So the big picture, I always encourage people to hang in there through the rough times with us and stay in the dialogue process. Money is a huge issue. They say it's one of the major causes of divorce and it doesn't need to be. And so I always encourage people to do whatever work you can on your own side of the street within yourself before you try to tackle your spouse's life stuff, or really clean up your own act and then start in the dialogue process.
Paula: I think a lot of aspects about change is that you have to change yourself first before you can work with anybody else.
Yes, we have lots of inner work to do. We're all on a journey here. Yeah, and I think that was the big enlightening thing for me because, my world changed a few years ago.
Best thing that happened to me, it caused me to wake up. And in that journey, I realize that you can't be happy in any aspect of your life if you're not happy with who you are as a person and make the changes that you need to make. And then you can be a good plus one to other people. Does that make sense?
Sally: Absolutely. Yes.
Paula: Okay. That was a hard lesson. It was a hard lesson, but it was well worth doing all the work, right? So anyway, how would somebody get ahold of you? We'll put in the show notes about your book, but how would they get ahold if you, they wanna reach out to you?
Sally: They can get a hold of me through my website, which is www.PositiveSelfCenter.com, or our phone number here is 248-645-5960. Thanks so much, Paula.
Paula: Thank you so much. I just love your insight. Last week's episode and this one. It just helps me look at things a little bit differently. If anybody would like to get ahold of me, you can reach me at paula@paulachristine.com or check out my website at paulachristine.com.
Thanks again, Sally.
Sally: Okay, thank you.